Deadline approaching for Ottawa to appeal ruling to compensate Indigenous children

OTTAWA —
The deadline is fast approaching for the federal government to decide whether it will appeal a decision by the Federal Court to uphold two Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders requiring Ottawa to pay out billions of dollars to Indigenous children.

Last month, Federal Court Justice Paul Favel decided that the Liberals had failed to demonstrate that the tribunal’s decision to compel the government to compensate each First Nations child unnecessarily taken into the underfunded child-welfare system was unreasonable.

The Oct. 29 appeal deadline comes at a time when the Liberals face pressure to signal specific actions to fulfill their promise of Indigenous reconciliation – something they recommitted to during the federal election campaign – following the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools.

Indigenous advocates continue to argue that taking First Nations children to court isn’t congruent with true reconciliation.

NDP MP Charlie Angus, who was joined by a St. Anne’s residential school survivor during a press conference on Monday, said the government has four days left to “do the right thing.”

“The prime minister needs to take responsibility for this. He needs to sit down with the litigants, he needs to sit down with Cindy Blackstock, and the [Assembly of First Nations], he needs to admit that the harms are not historic, they are ongoing. He needs to drop the ongoing appeal against the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that his government has just filed, he needs to agree to stop the federal court hearings,” he said.

“He has filed 20 legal actions against Indigenous children and lost every single one of them. He needs to say that he will accept the human rights tribunal ruling that found them guilty of willful and reckless discrimination and pay the compensation.”

In September 2019, the tribunal ordered Ottawa to pay $40,000, the maximum the tribunal can award, to each First Nations child removed from their home after 2006, as well as to their parents, because of the discrimination.

It was estimated that around 54,000 children and their parents could be eligible to receive compensation, which would likely cost the federal government more than $2 billion.

The second legal battle stems from a separate ruling in 2020 that expanded the scope of Jordan’s Principle, which is a rule stating when there is jurisdictional disagreement over what level of government should provide a service to First Nations children, Ottawa takes on the responsibility and worries about the costs second.

The tribunal ruled the principle should apply to children who are members of a First Nation even though they don’t have status under the Indian Act as well as kids whose parents are eligible for status when they are not.

With files from The Canadian Press.